Silver, who’s big on studying the stats on baseball and football — he got his stat start in sports — also predicted this week that the Seahawks would be in the Super Bowl with the Patriots.

And we all know what happened on that one — it was the Atlanta Falcons over the Seahawks Sunday.

OK, Silver wasn’t such a genius there.

But for those of you who are vacumning up all things Niners this week, here’s what Silver had to say about what the stats suggest on the team’s outlook:

“San Francisco…played very well for much of the year. In terms of the balance overall between offensive and defensive play, Seattle had that best balance throughout the year and…in the second half, were blowing people out by 50 to 7 scores and so forth. ..So they had the best stats from the regular season.”

Silver predicted the Patriots will end up in the Super Bowl, and will beat the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday.

Here’s what he had to say on ESPN this weekend, and his playoff observations: